


Blue Whale

by disordr



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Modern AU, everything is triggering, this is happening in central/east europe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 16:04:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10517127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disordr/pseuds/disordr
Summary: Kylo plays the deadly game with the mysterious Starkiller.What can I say, I kyluxed the phenomenon called blue whale challenge.





	

**Author's Note:**

> "Disclaimer" (please read this first):  
> This fic is based on a phenomenon that's called a blue whale challenge. It originated from the Russian platform vk around 2015 and recently went viral because the media in east and central europe that created a giant storm around it. It's rather a loose interpretation of a very unclear story. I made up the rules of the game for my story, made up the numbers of people playing and the challenges as well. Many people, including me consider it fake and treat it like a pasta or a meme (it has know your meme page so...) and don't take it seriously. If there will be any proof that the challenge is real and there were actual victims i'll delete this fic. 
> 
> The opinions on suicide and self charm that the characters voice in this fic are not my opinions, nor my thoughts or beliefs. I'm not trying to romanticize anything, I don't claim that self harm is a good thing. I don't consider any form of self harm good. I don't consider suicide a solution to anything. I'm not trying to drive people away from getting a professional help. I am a person with mental disorders as well and I'm not trying to mock mentally ill people. Everything that those characters say about mental illnesses is only for characterization and story purpose. Please don't take the it seriously, what those character think is not why I personally think.
> 
> The descriptions of what goes in Kylo's head, his feelings, emotions, etc. are strictly based on my own experiences.
> 
> The story is happening in central/eastern europe, but the country isn't specified. It is not supposed to be. I wanted it to be universal for the region where the blue whale is currently relevant. It is only supposed to have a slavic atmosphere. I didn't change names to slavic ones because they could point to a particualr country. I gave names popular in differend slavic countries to the characters who don't have names (Thanisson for example). The story despite being dark isn't completely deadly serious either. I make fun of some slavic stereotypes, i put some memes here and there. I mock some things characteristic for the slavic culture, which is also my culture since I'm from Poland myself.
> 
> Kylo's internet, mostly tumblr, experience is based on my own. I'm not saying the whole tumblr is like this. It isn't supposed to be an attack on anyone in particual or any group of people. It is mostly just satire, please don't take anything personally.
> 
> Trigger warnings list: suicide, self harm, mental illness, blood, gore, manipulation, violence, death of minors, animal violence, animal death, physical abuse, verbal abuse, internalized homophobia, strong language.
> 
> This is a dark story and many can find it controversial or problematic. If any of the things listed above is disturbing to you please don't read this story.  
> If despite all my warnings and explanations you still decide to read it you're doing it on your own responsibility. If you still get offended by it it's not my fault. If you didn't read it and get offended it's also not my fault.

Kylo’s face lit up; he broke another milestone. The last time he checked he had 4954 followers, now the number said exactly 5001. All thanks to the bunch of popular Russian blogs that had followed him recently. He needed to make the follow forever post, he thought, and went through his blog to select a good picture for it. After a few minutes of consideration he settled for the one with a boy whose face was turning into black smoke. The sun reflected in his laptop screen so he got up and covered the window making his stuffy room completely dark, the computer being the only light source. He didn’t mind that, because no darkness was worse than the one in his soul. He began working on the follow forever header.

Kylo forgot about his milestone and thousands of followers the other day as soon as he had to go to school. Being Tumblr popular meant nothing there, (not that he was the most popular depression blog but he was getting there slowly), so he wandered alone through the halls trying to avoid the crowds. He was just Ben Solo there. He was irritated in the morning, during the lunch his mood dropped to being upset and by the time he was leaving school he felt like throwing himself under the bus, that he ultimately got on like he did every afternoon. 

When he got home there was no one in the flat- Leia worked until late evening and Han was in Germany with uncle Chewie. Kylo’s family was like that most of the time- just not there. Kylo wasn’t sure if he even cared about them anymore. Dinner was in the fridge for him to microwave it, but he went straight to his room not feeling hungry despite having only had a bowl of cereal the whole day. He threw his backpack to the floor and climbed into his bed where he curled under the covers feeling miserable. He had failed math test and made a fool of himself in the cafeteria. The embarrassment still burned him from the inside hurling him into the pit of self loathing. Grim thoughts filled his mind to the point when he couldn’t lay like that anymore. He got up and stormed through the room heading to the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face or something. 

His eye caught a glimpse of sunlight reflected in the blade of the box cutter which lay on his desk in the pile of pencils, papers and other things. Reflexively he clutched it in his shaking hand pressing the blade into the pale skin of his forearm. Then he jerked the blade down, opening his flesh with slick, harsh sound. He hissed as he felt the bite and a wave of heat as blood oozed from the gash but it felt good somehow, like a ray of bright light cutting through heavy darkness obscuring his mind. He did it again and again, the other two wounds opening even wider, exposing red meat and tendons gleaming like red lips begging him for more. Every move of his fingers when he put the box cutter away sent a wave of dull pain through his arm but he felt calmer with each one. Before he gave it a second thought he was plastering a black and white filter onto the photo he had just taken, and when he thought he shouldn’t have done that his bloodied thumb was already tapping the ‘post’ button. As his picture appeared on his blog he threw his phone away on his bed suddenly scared by all the blood dripping onto his floor, forming a little puddle. He pressed his hand to the slits but it only irritated them and didn’t stop the bleeding. Forgetting about the post Kylo ran to the bathroom to wash and bandage them.

It took him almost an hour to stop the bleeding and he wasted all the bandages and half of Leia’s cotton pads for it. The cuts looked raw and when he had been wiping off the blood he could see his muscles and tendons moving inside. His skin looked weirdly floppy on the edges where it started turning pale white from the hydrogen peroxide. The bandages caught painfully on the wounds so he tried to move his arm as little as possible as he cleaned the floor in his room.  
After he was done he opened Tumblr to see that he had over 10 comments on the picture of his wounds and 8 new messages.

On the next day Kylo was still talking with two of the people who messaged him about his cuts; the rest were just kill yourself anons and asks if it was really his arm of the picture. Despite his entire forearm being covered by a thick bandage since yesterday’s afternoon, Leia hadn’t noticed or said anything. Nothing new. Kylo could be dying and she wouldn’t notice until the stench of his rotting corpse filled the entire flat. She also didn’t notice that he didn’t leave to go to school in the morning so he could sit in bed and reblog photos of roses and sad girls. Finally he decided to open two new messages which had been sitting unread in his inbox. One was the another “kill yourself” and the other was the author of the boy-with-smoke-face art he used for the follow forever telling him he didn’t have permission to edit his art. To avoid drama with the artist he started making a new one he would put in the said post. 

While he was working on it a new message popped in the chat. It was from a blog he didn’t know, that followed him merely a few hours ago. It had a black and white icon and didn’t look like a bot. It was actually very pleasing to look at and definitely matching his aesthetic. He followed it because why not? The message simply said:

satrkiller: Are those cuts really yours, or are you just pretending?

Another one of those, Kylo thought and considered not answering, but the ‘are you pretending part’ irked him.

kylo-ren: yeah I did it to myself yesterday wanna see? 

He took another picture of his bandages and sent it to the misspelled starkiller. What a loser, couldn’t even have an url he wanted. After a few seconds he thought that the bandages prove nothing so he took them off to take another picture for the starkiller. Some of the dried blood came off with the white fabric shooting little stings of pain. The wounds reopened partially and the small, round droplets of blood appeared at the edges. After a few minutes the starkiller replied.

satrkiller: That’s very nice but I still don’t have any guarantee that this is really your arm. Take a picture with your face visible.

kylo-ren: wtf dude?

kylo-ren: why are you so obsessed with my arm?

satrkiller: Idk just curious.

Kylo could leave this conversation with that random a bit creepy person as it was, but some sort of curiosity, or fascination, or just simple craving for attention made him to pose for a selfie with his slashed forearm covering the lower part of his face. He posted pictures of himself on his blog earlier, so the starkiller had probably already knew what he looked like. On the fifth try Kylo decided he looked good enough, put some filters on and sent the picture.

satrkiller: Does anyone knows you do that? Like are you seeing a doctor? Btw nice hair.

kylo-ren: nope I’m all alone with this

kylo-ren: why do you ask?

satrkiller: Well that’s good, you know you can get addicted to meds and stuff. Then you wouldn’t be able to stop taking them and they would turn your brain into mush until they’d lock you up in hospital. 

kylo-ren: yeah I’m afraid of that. and the side effects

satrkiller: Sometimes that they are even worse, you know it’s better to stay yourself even if it’s shitty than let other people turn into whatever they want you to be.

kylo-ren: yeah kill me if I ever turn into a normie hah

kylo-ren: my mother would like me to be like all those kids in school

Kylo was surprised that they would get along after the first message but his thoughts on therapy were the same. His teachers took him to school psychologists more than once. He hated how they looked at him while talking in that fake concerned voice, asking him questions they could recite if someone awoke them in the middle of night. They only wanted his mother’s money and didn’t care if the meds they prescribed him caused him side effects or not. He was aware that there was no way to determine exactly what he should take without testing various drugs on him and observing if he puked or dies from headaches or not. Besides he didn’t want to be a walking zombie with his identity wiped out by chemicals.

Leia sat on the couch in front of the TV sipping apple flavored beer and watching the evening news. Sixteen years old BrajanThanisson has been found dead in his house this afternoon the news reporter said. He had committed suicide by cutting his wrists. It was seventh suicide of an underage person this month. Media started calling it a series and invent different theories what might be the cause, but Kylo didn’t listen, too occupied with conversation with the Starkiller. He ate his supper with one hand and texted with the other telling him the story how he accidentally pushed the teacher and she said in the staff room he did it on purpose to hurt her. He felt some sort of interest in him and before he knew he was telling him about all his problems.

Kylo was angry at himself. He really was furious even. He has kicked the dumpster on his way home through the concrete jungle of gray high rise apartment buildings drawing the attention of the local “I squat where I want” crowd. Fortunately he managed to quickly walk away before he got beaten up for looking too gay. He slammed the door to his bedroom, threw his bag across the room and immediately went to check on tumblr and his conversation with the Starkiller. He had answered, but Kylo instead continuing the subject he went on how angry he was because of school.

satrkilller: Maybe If you hit something it would make you feel better.

satrkiller: You know let some steam out.

kylo-ren: what am I supposed to punch a wall or something?

satrkiller: Yeah. It might make you better. Just do it and see.

Kylo stood up and faced the wall encouraged by the Starkiller’s words. He hit it the first time with a dose of uncertainty and reserve barely feeling any impact. It felt kind of lame so the second hit was harder and more firm. He felt pain with the third one and the familiar bright, cleansing feeling that started biting into dark stuffiness on the edge of his mind lead to fourth the second after. After another quick two hits his knuckles started throbbing so he returned in front of his laptop feeling slightly more collected.  
kylo-ren: I think it works

kylo-ren: I feel a bit better.

satrkiller: Hit it harder

kylo-ren: okay

This time he hit even harder than before grunting every time his fists clashed with the wall. His hands felt hot and his mind more and more clear with every strike. He got faster and more vicious, focused only one this one action, his pain only fueling the fire in his veins. Then he heard a crack and his fist went past the wall. He blinked and pulled his hand out of the hole he had made a second ago. The white plaster dust stuck to the blood covering his scraped knuckles. There were red smudged circular imprints around the hole as well. He noticed his hands were trembling from the exertion and felt like they were on fire. However the darkness was gone and his mind was clear. 

satrkiller: Feeling better?

kylo-ren: yeah uh my hand is bleeding and I made a hole in the wall

He quickly retrieved his phone and took a picture of his destroyed knuckles and put it in chat before Starkiller managed to ask him for it.

satrkiller: Nice, but you better go clean that up.

kylo-ren: wanna see the wall?

satrkiller: Yeah

Kylo sent another picture.

satrkiller: Woah you really went hard on yourself. Does pain motivate you? Or do you just like pain?

Kylo thought for a second. He wasn’t sure what exactly happened in his brain while he was hitting the wall besides the fact that he wanted to hit harder and harder until his body refused to continue. But did he like it? He liked what he felt after that was for sure.

kylo-ren: I’m not sure but I think I kinda like it

kylo-ren: it makes me feel good later.

satrkiller: I see. You better go fix that wall tho, your mom comes back soon right?

Kylo-ren: shit ur right.

Kylo didn’t come up with any idea how to fix the hole, so he simply covered it with a poster hoping that he would move out before Leia noticed it. His knuckles still looked bad even after he washed them, so he put on a sweatshirt with sleeves so long that they hid his hands almost entirely. For school the next morning he dug out the old finger less gloves from his closet, because his teachers were usually more observant than his mother. He went back to the conversation with the starkiller on the same evening.

satrkiller: So you don’t have much things to do after school?

kylo-ren: yeah

kylo-ren: I don’t have anybody to do things with like nobody invites me anywhere and I won’t go to see a movie alone

kylo-ren: it’s lame af and at least I don’t wanna look lame

satrkiller: You want to change that?

kylo-ren: I wish 

satrkiller: Maybe you’d like to play a game with me?

kylo-ren: I’m not into gaming sry

kylo-ren: besides my computer is too weak

satrkiller: It’s not a video game.

Kylo’s interest spiked at that. He lacked engaging in any social activities even if he often felt highly uncomfortable while being with people. That and he was most simply bored. He missed the middle school when he still used to go on parties with Poe.

kylo-ren: what kind of game is it then?

satrkiller: It’s more like a challenge. 

satrkiller: I’ll give you tasks and you’ll have 50 days to complete them. Easy. There are currently 124 people playing.

kylo-ren: like in real life tasks?

satrkiller: Yes, you’ll need to photograph them to prove you really did them and we both know you can do that. Also there is one catch, nobody besides me and other players can know that you’re playing. If anybody discovers it, your followers, people at your school, your mom - you lose. If you won’t complete all the tasks in 50 days you also lose.

kylo-ren: well that’s interesting

kylo ren: do I win something?

satrkiller: Yes, but I won’t tell you what. It’s a surprise.

The whole concept was terribly unclear and sounded kind of dangerous, but the mystery drew Kylo like a magnet the way he was drawn to the starkiller himself. It’s been ages since he left his room to actually do something and he wanted to try. It was just a game anyway, he could just stop playing. However the real reason why he had already agreed to it was the prospective of the starkiller judging him if he refused.

kylo-ren: so what’s the first task?  
satrkiller: Well actually you’ve already did it. It was punching the wall.

kylo-ren: oh?

satrkiller: yeah, I needed to see if you are suitable for it. Not that I doubt in you but you know, it’s not for everybody.

satrkiller: So you’ve already won the first challenge and with quite a style. 

Kylo felt strange knowing he had been tested like that, but the praise hit something in him that needed more attention. Besides if the first task was just “punch the wall” they seemed quite easy.

kylo-ren: um thanks I guess.

satrkiller: to properly enter the game you have to give me your name so I can invite you to our facebook group.

kylo-ren: uh really?

satrkiller: Or whatever your profile is called.

kylo-ren: it’s Ben Solo.

As much as Kylo hated his real name he didn’t want anybody from his family or classmates to find his Tumblr so he interacted on the internet with them as Ben not Kylo Ren. A few seconds after he gave the starkiller his name he heard the sound of notification when his phone lit up showing a new invitation to a private group. It was called Blue Whale.

satrkiller: Congratulations, you are officially the 125th player in the game.

The group was private and didn’t show up in search results, it had 17 people in it from the same region as Kylo. Starkiller was the admin and their “curator” which meant there were others like him with other smaller groups. 

Kylo went to school paying extra attention to hide his knuckles and cuts, determined not to lose on the first day of the game. He was excited to find out what his second challenge would be in the evening and couldn’t think about anything else. The day seemed a little less gray and the cold winter air a little more bearable when he finally got out after 8 classes. It was refreshing to have something to wait for after school-; usually Kylo just sat in his room by himself the rest of the day and then went to sleep. Now he sat in front of laptop and waited for starkiller’s reply. He got it around 8 PM.

Star Killer: Are you ready for your next task?

He didn’t need to misspell his name in the group anymore. Kylo was a bit disappointed that he didn’t learn starkiller’s real name though.

Ben Solo: bring it

Star Killer: What an enthusiasm. Alright get on videocall with me.

Ben Solo: wait now?

Star Killer: Yeah?

Ben Solo: okay just gimme a sec

Kylo couldn’t possibly just call the starkiller wearing his old track suit and pajama top. He needed to make a good impression. He ran to the bathroom to wash his tired face and brush his hair quickly. In the end he used paste to style his hair a bit so his dark waves got that dramatic intentionally disheveled look. Then he changed his ugly home slacks to a black hoodie with a rose on it and simple black jeans torn on the knees. He didn’t really need to do that since the camera would only show the upper half of his body but what if he had to get up or something? After making sure his hair looked good for the last time he called the starkiller dying to get to know what did he look like.

“Hey” Kylo said as soon as he got connected to the mysterious starkiller trying to look attractive. What he saw was just pitch black room, only a bit of a desk was illuminated by the pale light of a computer screen. “Are you there?” He asked with disappointment audible in his voice.

“Yes” a much softer voice than he expected replied. Kylo’s own voice was lower than starkiller’s. “Hello Kylo.”

“Umm... I can’t see you. Can you move a bit forward?” Kylo asked hopefully.

“No, you can’t see me yet” the starkiller said. “Maybe after you complete more tasks. Are you ready for your second one?”

“Yeah I told you I am,” Now Kylo was even more determined to get on with it. He liked starkiller’s voice and he wanted to finally see his face.

“Okay, just watch this video.” A pale hand with long slender fingers appeared onscreen as the starkiller reached for his mouse to send the link to Kylo. “Download it from here. If you look away you lose.”

After clicking the link Kylo was taken to Dropbox with one file called s17.avi. He clicked the download button in the middle of the screen and waited a while while it downloaded. Watching a video was a simpler task than hitting the wall he thought and played it. It opened with a man sitting in old shabby looking armchair. The camera had to be lying on a table or something because it was pointed upwards, on the man’s face. The room he was in looked even dirtier than the armchair. The man held something on his lap but Kylo couldn’t see exactly what it was because of the angle. He took a large gulp of some alcohol, that Kylo assumed was vodka, straight from the bottle. Then he said something in a language Kylo couldn’t understand, drank more directly from the bottle and shot himself in the face. There was a loud, distorted bang and what was the man’s head became just a red, wet mass with a hole in the middle. His brain stuck to the wall behind him and the only things that were distinguishable were his crooked teeth sticking out from the torn meat and one eye dangling from the red pile The video ended right after.

“That wasn’t so bad” Kylo summarized what he had just experienced. That wasn’t the first snuff video he had ever seen in his life and definitely not the most disgusting. “I’ve seen worse.”

“I thought so. Didn’t expect it would be any challenge for you. Anyway you won the second task.” The starkiller said sounding a bit proud. It touched that one string inside Kylo that craved the praise. “I’m going to give you next one tomorrow.”

“How many are there?” 

“I can’t tell you, that’s part of the game. You can’t know how many you have left only that you have 50 days to complete all of them. I’ll tell you when you’ve done them all or when you’ve lost.” The starkiller moved so that his face caught a bit of the light. Kylo could see the shape of his nose and lips for a split second and wished it was a video he could rewind and pause in the right moment. “Talk to you tomorrow then.”

“Wait!” Kylo nearly jumped in his seat. “Can’t you stay for a bit longer?”

“Not on a videocall. We can text later.” The starkiller disconnected. Kylo turned off his camera with a sad sigh.

Other people from the group started to talk to Kylo in the course of the next two days. His third challenge was no different then the second one, just a much more gory snuff video he was supposed to watch on the videocall with the starkiller. The first person who spoke to him was a 17 year old girl, Tamara Unamo, who welcomed him to the group. There were mostly 14-16 year olds in Blue Whale and Kylo was glad that there was another person his age. She was nice to him and they had similar interests. 

Soon after her Kylo started chatting with more people and after a while they invited them to their own group chat. Besides Tamara there was Dopheld Mitaka and Ivan Rodinon. They all were similar to Kylo; outsiders at school, zero friends in real life, shitty parents. Kylo didn’t feel judged while he was talking to them. He tried to ask them about the other challenges or how many did they do, but they couldn’t talk about it. It was another part of the game; players could talk about it in general but not about the challenges or people who had lost or won it. All challenges were a mystery known only by their curator except one that Kylo found out about by looking at the group photos. 

Starkiller: You are probably dying to know what your fifth challenge is after the day off.

Ben Solo: why didn’t you write yesterday?

Starkiller: I had a busy day. You missed me?

Kylo didn’t reply embarrassed that he was so easy to read. 

Ben solo: What’s the new challenge?

Starkiller: Well the previous ones were still more a test than the real thing, but now you’re getting into the actual game. After this one you’ll really become a member of our group, it’s something like initiation, I’m sure it won’t be challenging to you as well. 

Starkiller: You need to do this.

An image popped up in the chat window. Kylo had seen it before in the group’s album; it showed a forearm with the bloody shape of a whale carved in it. There were more of pictures like this only with whale emoji as the description. Now Kylo knew the context.

Starkiller: When you’re done post a picture on the group.

Kylo swallowed hard and looked at the picture again. He was horrified. It had to be a prank, the whole group had to be a really elaborate prank.

Ben Solo: is this for real???

Ben Solo: who the fuck would do this?

Starkiller: Yes Kylo. This is your task. What’s the matter? You’ve done things exactly like that before. Don’t pretend you didn’t.

Ben Solo: You are sick.

Kylo shut his laptop harshly and put it away like it could hurt him. He paced the room a few times to cool down a bit and went to the kitchen to drink some water.

“Did something happen?” Leia asked from the couch where she was watching some TV show about a hospital.

“No, I’m fine” His voice trembled a little.

“You’re sure?” Leia turned and looked at him carefully.

“Yep” Kylo nodded and quickly retreated to his room shutting the door behind him before Leia could manage to dig anything from him.

He opened his laptop again and went to the album full of the photos. There were 16 of them, every one posted by a different person, there were ones that belonged to his new comrades. It seemed real, every whale looked different and people had them in different places on their bodies. Some of the cuts didn’t even look like whales at all, more like rectangles. Tamara had hers cut on her hip according to the picture, Mitaka chose his wrist and Ivan his leg. They weren’t very deep, just slim cuts with dark beads of blood on them. Kylo had had many like that on his body in different places. After it healed it would be hardly distinguishable from the other scars. Still, it was crazy like something you could see in a horror movie, or read on r/nosleep.  
Kylo went to sleep shortly after that still processing everything with the awareness that the clock counting down his time in the game was ticking.

On the next day Kylo didn’t spoke to the starkiller or any Blue Whale member. He felt that walking away from it would be the best thing to do and continue what he had been doing before he started playing. He didn’t talk with anyone that day because he had no other friends, he only said that he was present at the beginningof every class and had a short conversation with Leia about school. After two days like that he felt lonely and it only made things worse. Kylo hated himself for not having any normal friends in school like everybody else, for not being able to socialize and meet new people in real life. Meeting bunch of weirdos on the internet was all he could do being a pathetic creepy weirdo himself. He tried to talk to The starkiller but he was silent.

Kylo mostly stared blankly in the screen the whole afternoon trying to find a distraction or return to old conversations with people from tumblr. But he felt kind of anxious picking up the conversations that ended days ago. He ended up just scrolling through dashboard feeling gradually worse about himself.

In the evening Kylo found himself standing in the bathroom with a bloodied box cutter in his hand. At first it was on impulse and yielded only a few scattered cust. Then the challenge became much more easy and there he was cutting a shape close to a whale on his ankle. The starkiller would start talking to him again, he wouldn’t lose his new friends. He had plenty of scars anyway. One more or less wouldn’t make any difference. 

They were bunch of weirdos, but nobody normal wanted to have anything to do with him. Kylo took a picture of his bloody, rigid and messy looking whale and uploaded it only with emoji like the rest. It took a few minutes for The starkiller to respond informing him he had won another challenge.


End file.
